NJIT moves forward on $80M Greek Village project in Newark

Noah Addis/The Star-LedgerNJIT plans to move its Greek housing off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Newark and into new housing on campus, while selling the deteriorating buildings.

NEWARK — Frat row is getting a new address as the New Jersey Institute of Technology moves forward with an $80 million Greek Village in Newark.

The project will bring several fraternities and sororities onto NJIT’s campus, while freeing up their deteriorating homes on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for redevelopment.

The city’s planning board on Monday approved the construction of five three-story duplexes for Greek housing and a six-story Honors College building for dorms, retail and office space, a fitness center and a dining facility.

The buildings, which would provide space for up to 600 students on a wedge-shaped piece of property, would replace a 2-acre surface parking lot on the southern end of the campus, at Warren Street and Raymond Boulevard. About 1,600 students currently live on NJIT’s campus near the city’s downtown.

"The more students that you have living on campus, the stronger Newark’s downtown will be and the stronger Newark’s economy will be," said Josh M. Mann, a lawyer who represented NJIT at the planning board hearing.

Campus Gateway Development Inc., a for-profit corporation NJIT created to be the project’s developer, is still working out financing, said Monique King-Viehland, the group’s president. She said the corporation has applied to the state’s Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit program, and NJIT is considering bond financing.

The goal is to break ground by March, with completion scheduled for August 2013.

The corporation hopes to see the former Greek housing redeveloped into mixed-used buildings, with ground-floor shops or offices and upper-level residences, but that’s up to the properties’ private owners. King-Viehland said the Greek Village project could serve as a catalyst for that process.

"You change the whole dynamics of what’s available, and what you can do in that area when it’s no longer frat row," she said.

Although excited about the amenities, some fraternity and sorority members have mixed feelings about the project, said James Schumacher, a fourth-year business major from East Windsor who is the president of Phi Sigma Kappa at NJIT.

"The row has been around for a long time. Most of the fraternities have owned their houses for probably 50 years, so there’s just a lot of history," he said. "They’re not amazing, they’re not in great shape, but they’re old fraternity houses."

So far, eight of NJIT’s 18 Greek organizations have committed to moving to the Greek Village, King-Viehland said. Two plan to buy their units.

Zemin Zhang, a 60-year-old retiree who has lived on James Street for 22 years, said residents are happy to see the students go because fraternity row has been the scene of wild parties. He remembered one Halloween several years ago when the streets were covered in smashed pumpkins.

"The properties are in very bad shape," Zhang said. "In the past, they had lots of problems. ... Every Thursday night, there’s underage drinking."

The Greek Village is the first phase of the billion-dollar Campus Gateway Redevelopment Plan, which NJIT conceived five years ago. It involves the revitalization of about 23 acres scattered in University Heights, including Saint Michael’s Medical Center and the James Street Commons Neighborhood, King-Viehland said.

NJIT entered into a redevelopment agreement with the city and signed on Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. as the developer.

"This is a really a community development initiative, not just an NJIT initiative," King-Viehland said.

Campus Gateway was the vision of former NJIT president Robert Altenkirch, who has since stepped down. But King-Viehland said Altenkirch’s vision is still NJIT’s vision.

"We haven’t missed a beat," she said. "The board’s continued support and guidance are moving the project forward."

The Campus Gateway plan is a component of the Broad Street Station District Redevelopment Plan, which aims to create small, walkable neighborhoods with easy access to public transportation, such as the Broad Street Station, Newark officials said.